Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Fremont Fossils Find a Permanent Home

Did you know that camels and bison once dominated the Fremont landscape? More than 50 ice age fossil specimens were discovered during the excavation of the articulated concrete box at the Bay Division Pipelines Nos. 3 & 4 (BDPL3&4) project site near Mission Blvd in 2013. The SFPUC donated those fossils to the Children's Natural History Museum in Fremont earlier this month to help students and scientists learn about the area's history.

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Ice age fossils found at BDPL3&4 project site in their new home at the Children's Natural History Museum.

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Fossils from two distinct geologic layers were discovered at the site. One is likely the Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age, which we’ll talk more about next week. The other is the Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age. They add to our understanding of what this area looked like during the last ice age, known as the Pleistocene Epoch, which spans 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago.

Remains of bison, horse, elk, camel, deer, brush rabbit, deer mice, and pocket gophers were found in the soil unit that can be dated to the Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age of 11,000 to 240,000 years before present. This area of Fremont could have looked like the Serengeti of today, with grasslands accented by brush and trees.

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Artist rendering of what Fremont may have looked like during the Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age.

﻿The museum, located at 4074 Eggers Drive in Fremont, hosts dozens of student field trips each year, and is the only Bay Area museum to regularly display fossils from the Bay Area. We are thrilled to have found such a perfect home for this fascinating paleontological find.

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Are you Prepared for the next Earthquake?

The Hetch Hetchy regional water delivery system is taking steps to seismically reinforce its pipelines, tunnels and other facilities and we encourage you to be PREPARED. Check with your County or 72hours.org about how you can get ready. Remember, store at least a gallon of water per person, per day—enough to last 3 days, for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene—and don’t forget your pets.

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Project Information

The Seismic Upgrade of Bay Division Pipelines Nos. 3 and 4 (BDPL 3&4 Seismic) is part of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s Water System Improvement Program. This project will seismically upgrade two drinking water pipelines where they cross the Hayward Fault in Fremont. To protect the water system, the BDPL 3&4 Seismic project is replacing large sections of the pipelines with high-tech pipe elements and structures designed to protect them from damage during a major earthquake.

The pipelines, known as Bay Division Pipeline Nos. 3 and 4, cross the Hayward Fault near the intersection of Mission Boulevard and I-680 in Fremont. All project work will take place within the SFPUC’s right of way and nearby staging areas.

The seismic upgrade of Bay Division Pipeline Nos. 3 and 4 will improve the reliability of the water system for the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System’s 2.6 million customers in the Bay Area, including Alameda County.

Our project team is working closely with local officials to ensure construction schedules are timely and traffic and community inconveniences are minimized.

Our Goal

It is our goal to provide timely, useful information on the Seismic Upgrade of Bay Division Pipeline Nos. 3 and 4 throughout the duration of the project. As construction continues, check back for construction updates, work schedules and traffic impacts in Fremont.

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